This is my game report for the tournament at DS. Not all pictures have been uploaded yet.
I start investing in skill to get enough to cast Black Sleep in combat, which will be my second research choice after Just Cause. My swordsmen go off exploring, dwarves are sturdy little buggers, the two together can most likely take a neutral city with ease if one is nearby. I start producing a granary.
I discover a small peninsula to the east
Just Cause
Invest in skill
Explore
Granary
Peninsula east
Hell Hounds west, don't investigate yet
Marketplace
Many zombies west
Advisor tells me there's a city to the west
City has 5 high men cavalry, not good news. I retreat with my swordsmen after finishing immediate exploration efforts.
Several good city sites found
Housing to pop 6 -> Shrine -> Library -> Sawmill -> Sages Guild
Oh shit... 6 cavalry charging my 2 veteran dwarf swordsmen
Going to send one swordsmen against them, do damage until it's almost dead and then retreat. Hopefully it'll live so I can continue doing this. And hopefully kyrub didn't fix the bug that keeps the AI in place :P If he did, I'm dead now. Also rush building a unit of dwarf swordsmen. From scratch. Costing me 180
Yay, kyrub didn't fix the bug yet and I'm still alive! Now I have 3 swordsmen against 6 recruit cavalry, 3 of which I wounded pretty good. I'm going to do another raid and build another unit of swordsmen at normal speed (only takes 2 turns). Took out two wounded cavalry units this time and escaped again! I do another raid next turn to play it safe. Sadly, my unit of veteran swordsmen succumbs after taking out two full cavalry units. The rate this is going I can take out 6 cavalry units comfortably with 4 swordsmen if I want to take that pesky high men city soon. I decide to go for it, as my production is high enough to churn out swordsmen rapidly now.
Just Cause -> Black Sleep
I send 5 swordsmen to wipe out the hell hounds and take the human city Cantebury. I'll wait with the zombies, my swordsmen are roughly the same strength as zombies and I don't want to lose a bunch in case there are 6+. One unit of swordsmen will hit by the time I invade Cantebury. Meanwhile I'm building settlers in Copy Cats, will build two settlers before teching for magical weapons and hammerhands.
...and then two units of phantom warriors decide to come pay me a visit. Seems like it's the turn 50-trigger that sent them at me :P I'm just going to let them invade me and hope they won't burn the whole place down, this game is a disaster so far.
Yay, I live! They didn't even destroy any buildings, although the gold loss sucks. What sucks worse is that I could have turned it into mana, as I need a bunch of mana for the Just Cause spell I'm busy casting.
http://i50.tinypic.com/slkzgn.jpg
Cantebury is well defended... I can't even cast Black Sleep yet, only got a casting skill of 12 with my pathetic power base of 5. I'll charge boldly! I figure I'll lose 2-3 swordsmen, which will be well worth it. Sucks that I didn't bring just one more unit, could probably take the city without casualties if I had another.
They're all regulars, this looks tough. I'll move to the right, hoping that their left units will step on each other's feet enough to delay them a bit. I need to use suppression tactics here to win, they have a pretty big impact on units without a bonus to hit.
Bloody AI cleverly regroups, denying me the opportunity to snag the two front cavalry units. I'll keep bravely advancing backwards to the right.
This is interesting, the AI moved left for some reason. They have fewer units threatening me now, but will also face fewer attacks by me this turn. I think this gives me a small edge, as their 3 rear units can't even tough me next turn.
I sacrificed a damaged front unit by moving it bottom left, this succesfully lured the foolish cavalry down there. In the meantime, I can pick them off a few at a time. My elite swordsmen are highly effective, I think I'll win this with just two units lost.
Victory! 2 units lost as predicted, my elite swordsmen survived and another is at 39 exp. I'll leave the swordsmen here as garrison and supplement with a unit of high men spearmen, then build another garrison force back home in Copy Cats. I raze the armoury in Cantebury as I'm not planning on using it anytime soon. Cantebury is quite the backwater town, pathetic compared with the glory of Copy Cats. Still, they may prove to be a useful servant race as they are able to supply me with dirt cheap garrison units. Even if it can't grow further, it starts out with a pop of 7 and has both a granary and a library. I might also go for some cheap settlers to settle the less desirable locations.
November 1404 (I've completely forgotten to keep track of time): Our cause is just! We can now go subjugate alien races without compromising our ethics, the magics say so. Apparently I took a screenshot of having to refuse Shuri at this point, rather than casting Just Cause.
Another unit of settlers has been completed, I'm sending it south to check out the game down there and hopefully found a decent city. War Bears hits and I start summoning one, will be using it to explore with solo at first.
Farmer's Market done in Cantebury, built a unit of spearmen to free up some dwarf swordsmen for further exploration. Will be putting out cheap settlers here to settle the less hospitable spots while my more capable dwarves get the lucrative ones. Summoned a unit of war bears and grew my first dwarf outpost to size 2 in October 1405. Also started a new dwarf outpost to the south, not in a very good position. Finishing up on Temple in Copy Cats, will get Forester's and Miner's Guilds as well before teching up to hammerhands and Alchemist's Guild. Endurance hits the year after and I start on Dispel Magic since Summon Hero is not yet available.
I've explored my starting continent and found no other neutral cities. There's a bunch of easy lairs, so I'll grab all the available land straight away, and start gearing up for killer stacks in maybe 5 years.
December 1406: Merlin conquers the tower and drops by to say hi. His troops don't stay at the tower, so I'm going to rush through and see if I can get a foothold there quickly.
Merlin's fortress discovered, quite weakly defended. But my forces are weak, I can't take advantage of his weakness.
September 1407: Summon Hero hits, I'll be using this one a lot!
December 1407: Exploring the immediate surroundings on Myrror, locating a single spot for my dwarf settlers. His cities are placed horribly, blocking a lot of valuable land.
The north east spot will do nicely, adamantium dwarf troops are unbeatable. I'll pour generous funds into crashing up this settlement at lightning speed. A few turns later I discover that there are unsettled lands to the south on Myrror, I quickly send my settlers there to stake a claim before Merlin spots his oversight. He's supposed to be an expansionist too :P
May 1408: This is what I'm talking about! In just 16 turns I'll have a full stack of hammerhand veterans with magic weapons + a unit of war bears for pathfinding, ready to kick ass. This game may be salvaged yet, I'm betting I can take on Merlin pretty soon.
November 1408: First settlement planted down south, with 3 gold mines! That'll net me 18 gold per turn. Love dwarves, practically instant return on all investments.
Super Blademaster + Might is awesome, although he might be difficult to keep alive. I'll make sure to keep him away from enemy wizards until he's levelled up considerably. He can help my hammerhands mop up on nearby lairs, time for spring cleaning.
Great find! And I can afford a sandwich too.
September 1409: I spot the western behemoth node being cleared. Should I go after the node or his fortress? Or build up some more? I can't just seal off the tower, as I have budding settlements on myrror. I decide to go for the throat! However, I can probably take the node without him declaring war. So I'll grab the node first, then his fortress. Hammerhands will be pouring in to assist my assault, Merlin is going down. Hmm, he just cancelled our wizard pact because I keep checking out his cities
Time to speed up my plans.
Splitting up my armies, two hammerhands and Fang going to the node and the others going for the tower. I don't have Endurance on all yet, breaking off with a small group will allow me to speed up considerably. I'm running low on funds, even though I'm pulling in 123 gold per turn. My new settlements are extremely thirsty for gold to get up and running in a hurry, and my mana expenses alone amount to 66 gold per turn. It's important to remember that even dwarves run out of cash at some point. My settlements are growing fast now, I expect my economy to be booming within a year.
DUN DUN DUN. Hammerhands are pouring out of my capital headed towards the fortress, and his defenses are still weak. His fortress is defended by giant spiders, completely useless against my hammerhands (and pretty useless in general). From what I can see of his empire, conquering all his cities would likely boost my power base by around 60. With that much power I'd boost my casting skill massively in order to be able to cast Black Sleep and Healing repeatedly in combat.
First skirmish with Merlin at the tower. His first ice bolt took out 2 figures of hammerhands, hardly a threat. I'll make sure to keep Hair Ball away from him, though. Merlin lobbed another Ice Bolt at the same unit to kill another 2 figures and ran out of mana or skill, letting me win the battle easily without casualties. Merlin is now tense... I decide to ease up on the spellcasting for a while, giving preference to development of settlements.
Someone is being testy... The AI does seem to react a lot more rationally with the patch, kudos to kyrub. He seems to have casting skill of 100, sufficient for two max strength ice bolts.
Freya feels like barging into Hair Ball who's just razed a klackon village to the ground. Fortunately, I have Recall Hero. She's offering to trade me either Holy Weapon or Holy Armour for Just Cause. It's tempting, but I'll hold out for a bit hoping for something better. And I'm already busy casting Endurance on my hammerhands, I don't have mana to spare. My economy is also struggling to keep up, spending 40 mana per turn eats up over half my income.
Hair Ball has found a large, rich island to the north east which I need to go colonize. I still haven't finished colonizing my starting island, and there's plenty space on Myrror as well. Dwarves don't expand that well, 150 production per settler stings even with the econ bonuses they get. I stand poised to attack the node and two of Merlin's cities, I'm hoping to catch him on low mana to reduce the damage done. Maybe I'm waiting too long, I can win easily even with 2 large ice bolts thrown at me.
I decide to go for it, no point in waiting. My casualties will be minor and he'll bleed some mana. He's no tactical mastermind:
35
kyrub, fix! I lose two units of swordsmen, facing 2 doom drakes + 2 war bears + 2 draconians. He keeps casting Healing and Heroism all combat, failing well over half.
36
I take on Merlin head first, crushing the puny doom drake defenses of one of his bigger cities without losing a single unit. The spoils of war are generous, 450 gold and a very useful city:
37
It even has an animist's guild for healing and food production. And it gives me a whooping 20 power! This doubles my power base from 19 to 39. This game is going to pick up speed fast now
38
Random mana short, shouldn't give me much trouble. If anything, it might even help me as my economy is based on gold rather than mana. With a little luck, Merlin is struggling now. And his fortress is struggling big time:
Still defending with giant spiders... Really need to improve the AI's troop selection algorithms somehow. Either that, or balance units better so no choices are as useless as this.
40
And now he disbanded his giant spiders... I take the city without breaking a sweat, and get Holy Armour + Create Artifact in the ruins. And he's defeated rather than banished, means I can't mooch other spells off of him. I'll swipe all his other cities in a hurry and then crank out some draconian spearmen to explore Myrror in a hurry.
41
I have a LOT of money now, and substantial armies. Question is what to do with them. Priority lists:
MAGIC
1) Put Endurance on a full stack of hammerhands so they can blitz ahead
2) Get massive casting skill
3) Summon more heroes
4) Enchant my hammerhands with Holy Armour
5) Finish research on Summon Champion and get some kickass heroes (probably won't get them in time to make a difference)
ECONOMY/LOGISTICS
1) Establish a ferry connection to Freya's continent, I'm confident I can take her down immediately after grabbing Merlin's abandoned cities.
2) Find the remaining wizards with Hair Ball (levelling him up on weak lairs and cities in the process)
3) Keep building up my economy to allow for more stacks of hammerhands
4) Build up Dover (my northern human town, size 18 max and currently at size 6 with basic econ built up) to churn out paladins, just in case I run into a really mean chaos wizard
5) Establish a transplanar highway, utilizing the two additional towers I've discovered near Merlin's cities. With a little luck I'll be able to reach most of Arcanus through these, and with myrran roads I can move at lightning speed!
I'm skipping further expansion, I have more than enough economy at this point. Taking neutral cities should be sufficient expansion.
42
She declares war the turn after I defeat Merlin, cleverly sensing that she's next. But her posturing will be in vain, I doubt she'll be able to put up much more of a fight than Merlin.
43
Trying to take a small klackon city defended by 4 swordsmen, this happens :/ I was convinced that Hair Ball was invincible and just put him on auto combat. Nothing much happening otherwise, plodding along steadily.
January 1413 stats:
Total upkeep 102
Power base 156
Casting skill 41
Income 393
44
I'm building up a large task force of Draconian Bowmen (elite + adamantium) as the tower I found only leads to a useless small island. My hammerhands are landlocked, so I've started building triremes in Dover (up north, by the tower).
I'm losing momentum here, further economic development helps me little as I already have the forces I need for victory. Draconians are busy exploring Myrror and some have been sent to Arcanus as well.
45
Freya attacks! Her troops go down without casualties, though. I only face useless spells.
46
I'm lazy about building defenders for my draconian cities, so a few zombies razed one.
47
I conquered Merlin's cities during the mana short, as evidenced by the huge mana hike after it ended. I'm gaining 1-2 casting points per turn now. Not sure if I should enchant my units or summon heroes. I decide to grab a few champions, they're too much fun to pass up.
48
Turns out this wasn't Freya's main continent after all, time to go hunting.
49
Time to go lizard hunting as well, just discovered a big draconian city he owns. I might have to approach him with a little more care, he ranks highly on the power chart.
50
I've had a group of bowmen besiege a lair of great wyrms for a long time, taking out one at a time. My patience pays off handsomely, Archmage is going to help a lot.
51
Sweet, one of my favourite spells. Not really all that useful for its cost, but I like terraforming.
52
Not bad at all! I wonder if I'll get any use for him in combat, but this is an excellent mix of skills. Well protected with Constitution + Agility, strong offensive capability with Blademaster + Constitution (even though he only gets 5 mana per level) and Armsmaster can do a lot for my stacks. Time for Magic Spirits and lots of Endurance now.
53
More time has passed with boring troop movement, and I'm poised to invade Oberic's fortress. My invasion forces consist of 6 hammerhand units and 13 units of elite draconian bowmen with adamantium weapons. His defenses consist of 4 stag beetles, 2 sprites, a unit of orc cavalry, a unit of klackon halberdiers and the Huntress. I decide to go in with all bowmen, should be a walk in the park. My stats as of January 1415 are as follows:
Total upkeep 189 (61 fame lowers it to 128)
Power base 230
Casting skill 97
Income 624
54
He's using Warp Wood, not a bad idea but it'll probably be too slow to take out just one unit per turn. I have Black Sleep as backup in case I can't kill them fast enough. I do in fact manage to take out his archer hero with Black Sleep first round.
55
Final battle against Oberic, also easy.
56
I get Cracks Call and Life Drain.
57
Final battle against S'ssra shortly after.
58 I get Resurrection and Guardian Spirit. I drained his mana with a few fake attacks before combat in order to get an easier battle and ensure he wouldn't respawn. His ranged units cost me 2 bowmen. I decide to resurrect my trusty Hair Ball!
59
Riiight.... Just wanted to see if she'd go for it
60
Taking on Freya's fortress, getting Basilisk and Star Fires for my efforts. She starts casting Spell of Return as she had too much mana for me to drain pre-combat.
61
Trying to take one of Freya's cities with a single unit of hammerhands in order to speed up my victory. I land Black Sleep on two of the basilisks and my hammerhands cream the rest.
62
Final battle! I decide to give Hair Ball another chance to prove his worth in auto combat, this time with decent magic items.
63
He's just about to prove himself to be a useless fuzzball once more, but he lives! And it wasn't the final battle after all, I forgot about her northern city. Ninja Cat rushes to the rescue with a small band of archers:
64
65
I get Dispel Evil and Stone Skin.
66
Final score. Forgot to note down the month, I think it's late 1415.
Comments about the game:
- It was risky to go scouting with my first two swordsmen units. It cost me 9 gc per turn for a total of 100 gc or so, and money is tight early on. Obviously, had I found a neutral city I could conquer it would have paid off handsomely.
- My exploration was quite poor, as were my logistics. I could have won a year or two earlier with better map knowledge and troop movement.
- War Bears and Black Sleep did very little for me all game. I should have simply gone for roads instead and not bothered with war bears. Endurance wasn't much use either, it's too expensive to enchant a whole stack. If I were to replay the scenario I'd pass on all 3 of those.
- Economy generally worked out well, but I probably had too much economy focus early on. This delayed my production of hammerhands, which was crucial to securing the game. As soon as I defeated Merlin I cruised on to victory at lightning speed, the extra income from his cities was far superior to that from my expansions. Dwarf settlers at 150 are just too expensive. I fell into the trap of trying to max out my starting island rather than just taking one or two good spots. Going for a single settlement at the coal/river site would have been far more profitable.
- Going for Draconian Bowmen was a really good decision which shaved many years off of my victory date. They had plenty strength for taking on my enemies and flying was (obviously) a major asset in inter-continental warfare. If I didn't have access to adamantium weapons, going for air ships would probably also have worked out decently since the cities were already developed sufficiently.
- I didn't face any counter attacks all game, this was most likely due to me playing with 1.40d which contains a problem with counter attacks. I might have a quick replay without reporting using 1.40c to see if it plays out entirely differently.
- I had a big problem with my weak casting skill most of the game, Archmage would have helped significantly with that. Losing my Nature and Death book for Archmage would probably help a lot.
- Speed construction started getting way boring mid-game, and I just allowed resources to pile up. I'm really looking forward to having this changed in the mod, if it turns out to be possible.
- Reporting was more effort than expected, and it got a lot messier than expected
- If I were to go again, I'd go with the following setup:
1x Life (Just Cause)
1x Nature (Earth Lore)
1x Sorcery (Word of Recall)
Archmage
Warlord
Dwarves
Word of Recall, in combination with Summoning Circle, would have been an extremely efficient means of getting my troops where I need them. I'd like spent most of mana all game on this spell, after exploring the world with Earth Lore. Earth Lore would have been invaluable early on, saving me lots of time.